In a conventional offset rotary printing press, a drive motor is used to drive not only the main body of the printing press but also an inking device via a plate cylinder. This configuration also achieves a function of applying a load of the inking device to the plate cylinder. For this reason, the drive motor of the printing press is subjected to a large load. It is therefore necessary to use a motor having a large capacity. As a result, there is a problem that such a conventional offset rotary printing press has to use an expensive motor and also is incapable of supporting a higher speed operation.
Furthermore, in recent years, as disclosed in Patent Literatures 1 and 2, there has been introduced a printing press provided with a different drive motor for driving an inking device singly (hereinafter, single drive motor) in addition to the drive motor for driving the main body of the printing press. Such single drive motor for the inking device is provided so that operations related to the inking device such as ink cleaning can be performed in parallel, at different timings or speeds, with operations related to the main body of the printing press such as cleaning of a blanket cylinder or an impression cylinder.